Worker suicides bring home need to treat employees with empathy
Paul Yip says the young migrants who prop up China's manufacturing success should not be treated as mere machines. Doing so can have tragic results, as two recent suicides remind us
The recent reports of the suicide of two young Foxconn workers reminds us of some neglected issues facing an emerging China, namely, how to care for the increasing number of young migrant workers in cities. They are more educated than previous generations but have limited experience of dealing with life's adversities. Their mental well-being is therefore sometimes at risk.
These are the generation who grew up under the one-child population policy. They have been protected, sometimes overprotected. Their parents have tried to provide them with the best education, to give them a head start. But, at the same time, they have cosseted their children, thus depriving them of life's trials and failures that would help make them stronger and more resilient.
An estimated 120 million young people aged under 30 are part of this floating population. They work in different kinds of jobs, mainly in China's coastal regions. Every year, they return home for the Lunar New Year, creating what some have called the largest annual mass movement of people in the world.
These young people provide the constant supply of cheap, quality labour that sustains China's economic development.
Yet, in most cases, their well-being has been neglected or ignored; they are treated as commodities - valued only for their labour in the production process - rather than as human beings. Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer, a listed company that counts Apple and Dell among its customers, employs more than 400,000 workers in Shenzhen alone, mainly young migrants.
A spate of suicides at Foxconn during a five-month period in 2010 triggered a public outcry at the working conditions and, as a result, the company moved to improve things, mainly by raising wages.
However, it seems that more money doesn't really rectify the deficiencies of the working environment: monotonous and routine work leads to a disconnection among workers that goes against the aspirations and preferences of most twenty-somethings. Pressure to meet quotas, no proper rest periods and a policy of no talking; all are not conducive to enhancing the mental well-being of any worker.